Friday, October 06, 2006

To anyone arriving here via the ever-excellent Crooks & Liars (or just by accident) my "American Inquistion" post is IMHO decent, but nothing to get too excited about. One post amongst millions, however adequate, doesn't amount to a bean, let alone a hill of them.So in the hope of making your visit more worthwhile, here's a handy list of links to prevous posts that have been most popular--apparently becuase I'm better at satire than serious comment. So click on a couple and hopefully you'll be sufficiently amused that you might have reason to return every once in a while.

Thanks to a combination of Blogger's ocassional quirks and rubbish QOs from Verizon DSL the post below is quite buggered. The list is a compilation of previous posts that any new visitors here from the C&L link might enjoy and thus persuade them to revisit once in a while.The links aren't parsed at the moment thanks to tech issues in uploading. but you can click and get to a couple of the archived posts that will hopefully give you a life. Meanwhile I need to fix this. AARRGGH!

NOTE: Right now at 5.31 EST the links seemd to have been crosslinked somewhat. I'll have to edit and repost to parse them out properly, but it's not completely messed up so click away--you'll get something. Fix is on it's way.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Guantanamo Bay is famous for one thing! Illegal imprisonment and the suspension of habeas corpus… TWO things!… illegal imprisonment and the suspension of habeas corpus...and, prisoner abuse—three! Three things!Illegal imprisonment, no habeas corpus, prisoner abuse and the complete suspension of reality…(sigh) Right! Guantanamo Bay is famous for, not necessarily in this order and subject to modification, four or more things, those being the….(etc).

Not even Monty Python’s ultra-hilarious sketch “Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition!” reaches the level of absurdity that plays out at Camp X-Ray in Cuba. Amongst its more-than seven hundred prisoners were ignorant teenage boys, farmers, a crippled old man and an informant on radical Muslim’s for MI5 (the British intelligence service), all of whom were included in Donald Rumsfeld’s catch-all phrase, “the worst of the worst”.

Since around 2004 Gitmo’s cells have been slowly emptying, with not one “detainee” brought to trial in the US (or anywhere else for that matter). The Guardian now reports that the US is trying to return its nine remaining British inmates to the U.K in a package deal and interestingly enough the U.K, government is refusing. Why?

For one thing the U.K. is currently insisting that only one of the nine is actually a British citizen. And the other thing is that if the U.K. were to accept all nine anyway, the US is insisting they be kept under 24-hour surveillance indefinitely.As these prisoners haven’t been proven guilty of anything, the U.K can’t just stick them in one of their own prisons—that would be illegal. Letting them live outside of prison but under constant surveillance would also be illegal under British law.And then there’s the fact that these men have been held illegally in the first place so to accept their status as some kind of criminal without evidence would also be illegal.Finally the US has no right to dictate the terms under which a British citizen may live in their own country anyway, nor the conduct of British law.

Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld have good reason to empty Camp X-Ray in light of public discontent threatening to change the political scene. Even if Democrats win both houses this November, that still leaves almost two-years of inevitable deal-making and stone-walling to suppress and scrub the shame of Gitmo—two years in which Bush as Commander In Chief can employ his executive powers to clean the place out.

But with America’s “strongest ally” in the “war on terror” currently (finally!) refusing to be complicit in covering-up illegal detentions and prisoner treatment, what then for these nine? Will they be the only ones left? Or will the one acceptable Brit be released and the rest shipped off to who knows where? First this administration wanted them, in fact need them, and now it wants to wash it's hands of them.These captives may not be screaming from the rack or hot pockers, but it's still torture.

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Mark Foley reaching out or reaching-around with some apparently deserving but possibly impressionable young lads. Photo credit to whoever took the photo. The following text is SATIRE--in case some idiot tries to reference it as anything other than that.

Hey, it's Mark! R ur parents home? Wot U wearing right now? Is it just me or is it HOT in here? !! OH! It must be YOU!

Who was it who said that politics is like a “greased pole”? I think it was the same guy who said that “politics makes for strange bedfellows”. Anyway, never in my wettest dreams did I imagine that things would come to a head like this!

As you probably know, I was minding my own business when suddenly I found myself with this huge mess on my hands and now I’m being smeared, with headlines like “Foley’s Electile Dysfunction” and “Page Me!”—teenage boys can be so cruel!

With my personal internet privileges revoked I thought there was nothing I could do to set things straight. Shunned, I sought refuge in the gym but five minutes of sweaty pumping and I was spent. I didn’t feel like a man anymore, I felt like a little boy. But then I heard someone say “hey, I know you! I met you cruising in Florida!” and before I knew it he’d put hisblog in my hands.

I may be on my knees right now but thanks to 5th Estate’s helping hand I again have the tool I need to touch my constituents and grab their attention once more. I’ve been thoroughly tea-bagged by everyone (except Jeff Gannon) in the so-called media (just like the Clintons have been by Fox). But thanks to this “blog-o-tunity” all I can say to the media-whores and presstitues is--Look out bitches!!!!And to everyone who still believes in me (clap as hard as you can, it really does help!) allow me to describe my position in the most explicit terms—I think I owe you that favor (you can pay me back later--flowers, chocolate, votes, a pair of strappy Jimmy Choo’s—let’s decide over a tossed salad, around noon-ish?)

As I’m sure you all know I was raised a Catholic. I’m not sure if the preservation of feminine virginity and taking an interest in the development of boys came to me naturally or whether it was beaten into me, but either way I developed a fascination for morality which led me naturally to the “big tent” of the Republican Party.Unlike some politicians who talk about being “bi-partisan” but never do anything about it, I never forgot my youthful experiences. As a grown man I wanted to share those semenal (sic) experiences with a new generation of confused youth. And for that sincere desire I am now already convicted by the press who, like Madame Le Farge in some incomprehensible History Channel costume drama, want nothing more than to see mewell-hung!

Well! As sure as bears shit in the Bushes I will NOT take this abuse lying down! I am not going to swallow the slimy ejaculations of my critics! No Sir! Instead it is I who will give them a mouthful!

Though I’ve been forced to relinquish my seat to some sordid back-room deal for the time being, rest assured I’ll be back and on top once again! So watch out America, I’ll be coming from behind! And then you’ll all be sorry!

Signing off for now as your GOP congressional mispresentative from Florida;